consist

intransitive verbdefinition: to be composed or formed (usually followed by “of”).example: The United States consists of fifty states.example:The test will consist of thirty questions.example:Paper consists of small fibers, most often derived from wood pulp.example:He felt his life consisted of nothing but struggle and failure.

averse vs. adverse

It’s not a shocker that these two adjectives are frequently confused. They differ in spelling only by a letter, and they both mean, broadly speaking, “opposed to.” Digging deeper into their etymology only reveals more similarity: the same Latin verb, versare, meaning “to turn,” is at the root of both.

To keep the memorizing simple, here’s a tip:

The word “averse” always applies to a person. It describes a person’s feeling or attitude of being against or opposed to something. Examples: She was averse to violent movies. Are you averse to attending this costume party?

The word “adverse” applies to outside forces and conditions that affect people, usually in a way opposed to or harmful to people’s needs or interests. Examples: A blizzard creates adverse driving conditions. This study concludes that violent movies have an adverse effect on children.

You’ll notice, too, that “averse” is almost always used with the preposition “to.” Examples: I am not averse to change; it just takes me a while to adjust to new things.

By contrast, “adverse” usually precedes a noun that it modifies: adverse side-effects, adverse winds

Get this distinction down, and then learn the more precise meanings of these two words by looking up the dictionary entries. And, finally, if you are familiar with “aversion” and “adversity,” which are the nouns formed from “averse” and “adverse,” knowing this quartet of words will strengthen your command of all of them.

P.S. If you come up with a mnemonic device based on the extra “d” in “adverse,” let us know.

Oct

25

2013

Wordsmyth offers a free school subscription for 2013-14 school year

Wordsmyth loves teachers. Teachers make up a significant portion of our user base, and developing literacy and vocabulary tools and resources that serve the needs of classrooms motivates much of what Wordsmyth is planning for the future.

Earlier this year, we introduced a paid subscription option for individual users who want the benefit of premium features. A paid educational group subscription is in the pipeline, but to allow teachers and their students to try the premium subscription features, we are offering a free educational group subscription for the 2013-14 school year. Members of a subscribed school will have access to an ad-free site with a dedicated school URL, and other premium features such as unlimited saving and sharing of activities, use of up to 50 words in activities, Spanish support, and more.

In addition, subscribed schools will also have free use of new content and tools that will become available in the next few months: the extensive Wordsmyth Word Parts (roots and affixes) reference integrated with dictionary entries, and powerful search filters that allow users to perform focused dictionary searches to more easily generate subsets of the dictionary for specific purposes.